Behind the scenes of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid at Magic Kingdom

Disney has released a new video hosted by Imagineer Chris Beatty who gives us a sneak peek at the making of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid. The video includes some never-before-seen sketches, artist renderings, attraction maps and more, and shares some details on Prince Eric’s castle and the attraction’s creative queue.

Also included is a brief talk by Imagineer Eric Miller with some behind the scenes glimpses of rock work from a few weeks ago.

I really enjoyed the great shots of the model WDI is working off of to build the attraction’s facade and rock work. A meet and greet for Ariel is also housed in the same complex. The attraction is scheduled to open in 2013 (although they are hoping to finish in time for 2012 holiday season (I hope they do).

I am more than a bit disappointed in that it looks like the Magic Kingdom interior remains an exact clone of the already open California Adventure version that has been roundly criticized for lacking the crucial climatic Ursula fight scene.

But hey! It is a new high capacity attraction for Fantasyland, so let’s just be happy we finally got something to replace 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea…oh I get it, the name is a tribute to the old submarine attraction. That explains the difference between DCA’s name and the Magic Kingdoms.

A longer version of this video is being installed at Disney’s Hollywood Studio in the One Man’s Dream walk-through. I’ll be visiting soon, let us know if you’ve already seen it.

7 thoughts on “Behind the scenes of Under the Sea ~ Journey of the Little Mermaid at Magic Kingdom”

I’m looking forward to this new ride. But I have to say the exterior rockwork (shown in the models), which seems to be getting a lot of attention lately, sure does look….well…brown. It looks more like a dry, hot desert scene than something that evokes thoughts of a lush, undersea/coastal environment. Around 0:19 on the video, there’s a “ground level” drawing of the attraction that looks better because the “grassy” flat areas on top of the rocks seem to be more visible. I hope it turns out looking more like that than the brown, dry, hot-looking 3-d models. I don’t need anything else to make WDW feel hot! Especially in Fantasyland, where it always seems so hot and crowded to begin with.

im a little confused. i thought this was supposed to be on a grander scale then the one in DL? am i wrong? it looks exactly the same size.

Anyhow, I really hope they provide a ‘ceiling’ when you are Under the Sea, unlike in DL – when you look up you just see lights and wiring. I dont remember the last time i saw lights and wiring under the sea. That seems like such an obvious miss, it was really disappointing to me. Walt would have never let that fly.